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1
Taylor, Andrew. "Experimenting with self-organised learning for organisational growth : a person-centred approach." Thesis, Brunel University, 1997. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/5531.
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This thesis records my professional search for a management model which will harness the fill capabilities of people in organisations to the achievement of the organisations, goals. This search has taken place in the context of the lost Office in which I have spent my working life. The key event in this search was my introduction to Self-Organised Learning (S-O-L) in 1984, during the Centre for the Study of Human Learning's S-O-L action research project on supervisory and managerial effectiveness. My survey of the literature in the fields of management, learning and psychology has prompted me to identify the need for a more person-centred approach to management. The survey focuses on 5 key issues, the motivation of people to contribute to the achievement of organisational goals, responsibility and control, assumptions or myths about people, attitudes towards people, and learning for continuous improvements. I have followed the action research paradigm in four main research projects: (i) a trial of S-O-L in leading Read Post Office in 1995/86; (ii) the use of S-0-L in the Parcel Sort Centre near leading between 1906 and 1990; (iii) a major Management Development and Productivity Improvement Programme in the Parcel Sort Centre in 1990. (iv) further use of S-O-L in the Parcel Sort Centre near Reading in 1991 and 1992. In the research I have used the key S-O-L tools, the Learning Conversation and the Personal Learning Contract, and I have deployed my on approach to people management which is based on trust, openness, support and encouragement. The action research results have been evaluated on a multi-perspective basis taking account of the benefits to: participating managers both as individuals and as teams; the organisation; myself, as a manager, action researcher and person. Included in the evaluation are the results of evaluation conversation held with members of my management team at the Parcel Sort Centre. These are presented in the form of Personal Learning Biographies which address the learner's own as well as others' evaluation. A major outcome of my research is the development of a Person-Centred Model of Organisational Growth. Together the action research results and the model highlight my conclusion that, as managers and trainers, we are failing to release the potential of people in organisations to learn and grow and thereby fully participate in the achievement of organisational goals. We are not developing effective personal and group relationships based upon the motivation theories of Maslow and Berzberg, McGregor’s Theory Y and Rogerian concepts. The thesis demonstrates that the systematic practice of Learning Conversations on-the-job in a variety of work based contexts transforms the attitudes of people towards work and empowers them with learning focused skills and competencies, which enable them to work more productively and effectively in individuals and as a team to meet organisational goals. This is a mutually beneficial process, enhancing the powers of the individual and the objective demands (productivity, quality of service and cost effectiveness) of the organisation. More than this, the S-O-L approach creates a structured, systematic Learning Environment which proactively encourages change and development in ways which can sustain individual development and organisational growth. This thesis identifies move of the hidden mythologies and constraints which need to be deconstructed and reconstructed in the support environment during the change process of individual and organisational growth.
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Okoya, Olajumoke. "Organisational climate and performance : a case study of Nigerian high growth SMEs." Thesis, University of East London, 2013. http://roar.uel.ac.uk/3932/.
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There have been extensive explorations of organisational climate (OC) and performance in large organisational contexts but predominantly in western economies. Despite the rich and growing body of literature on the topic, there is considerable lacuna in the understanding of how the composites of organisational climate factors coalesce into business enablement and performance outcomes especially in economically resurgent African economies of which Nigeria is one. More fundamentally, the dimension of High Growth Small and Medium Enterprises (HGSMEs) exemplify the dearth of knowledge of the intricate role of OC in reconfiguring strategic positioning and performance of organisations, especially the genre of SMEs attributed as the main driver of economic growth. Against this backcloth, this study explores the dynamic interaction between OC and HGSME performance in Nigeria with a view to providing situated understandings of how organisational performance is moderated by variabilities of OC. This relationship is investigated empirically using as conceptual prisms four principal constructs distilled from the extant literature; leadership, organisational strategy, HRM practices and entrepreneurial orientation. Methodologically, a triangulation procedure was applied in order to afford both rich-context and scaled datasets. From a sample of HGSME drawn from the national database maintained by Small Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), the mixed method approach used encompassed data gathered through (a) in-depth interviews conducted with senior executives of sample organisations and (b) survey questionnaires administered to 300 employees within two Nigerian HGSMEs. Qualitative data was analysed through thematic analysis. The quantitative data treatment rigour was achieved through descriptive statistics; correlation and multivariate regression analysis. OC was measured at the firm level using the validated instrument (Organisational Climate Measurement instrument, OCM, Patterson et al., 2005), while the organisational performance was measured subjectively using efficiency and quality as performance proxies. Results show direct effects of organisational factors (leadership, strategy, HR practices and entrepreneurial orientation) on organisational climate configuration. The relationship between organisational climate and performance is significantly positive while the direct effect of some HR practices on organisational outcomes such as efficiency (training vs. efficiency, employee involvement vs. efficiency) was negative. The results are robust in indentifying the nature of internal organisational systems and networks that triggers growth and sustainability of HGSMEs.
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Robinson, R. J. "The mediating effect of organizational climate on personal growth amongst quality circle members." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14388.
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Bibliography: leaves 100-114.The productivity and manpower situation in South Africa was reviewed. The necessity to involve workers at all levels in organizations was emphasized. The definition of "productivity", and the role of the human resources development (HRD) specialist was noted. The concept of "organizational culture" and the relationship to "climate" was discussed. The literature surrounding worker alienation, and the attempts to overcome this by means of participative work redesigns aimed at "worker development" was reviewed. The serious reservations which the organized labour movement has towards "participation" and designs such as quality circles (QC's) were noted and discussed. QC's themselves were introduced with an overview of their origins. The "trade war" between Japan and the West was mentioned, with particular note taken of the role of QC's and their subsequent usage and success world-wide. The critical importance of management commitment and a participative climate for the success of QC programs was emphasized. The present study was undertaken within a QC program in a large engineering company, and consisted of 187 experimental subjects QC members and 63 control subjects (non-SC members). Subjects were measured on the independent variable Organizational Climate which consisted of Trust a Involvement, Motivators, Communications, Decision making, Control Data, and Average Climate. These factors were obtained by means of performing a factor analysis on Likert's (1961) data from his Organizational Climate Scale. The dependent variable Personal Growth consisted of Life Satisfaction, Self-esteem, Powerlessness, Locus Of Control (LOC) and Purpose In Life (PIL). It was hypothesized that QC members would show more personal growth than non-QC members, but that this would be mediated by organizational climate and time spent as a QC member. The validity and reliability of the study were discussed. The results indicated that QC members were higher on life Satisfaction and Self-Esteem than non-members (P < 0.01). Both groups reported significantly more participativeness of climate over the previous 12 months, but QC members reported a greater increase. A significant (P <0.01) correlation was found between most Organizational Climate indices and Personal growth measures. It was concluded that QC participation brings about increased Personal growth, and that this growth extends to non-QC members in the same work area. A critical mediating variable however appears to be Organizational Climate, which must be truly participative if any intervention such as QC's is to succeed. This is consistent with the findings of other authors. The need for further research was discussed, and the role of climate was re-emphasized by way of conclusion.
4
Taleb, Khalil. "The influences of organisation and culture on business growth in the insurance industry in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/1983/5ca3d7bb-c9f5-4fdc-b3ff-6be5997ed73f.
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Hudson, Ken, University of Western Sydney, of Arts Education and Social Sciences College, and School of Social Ecology and Lifelong Learning. "Designing a continuously creative organisation." THESIS_CAESS_SELL_Hudson_K.xml, 2001. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/601.
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This research confirms that organisational creativity is of growing interest to leaders due to an an anticipated move into the information age, and the growth of the new economy. For some leaders it also represents a new post-cost-cutting strategy to ensure organisational growth and sustainability. The research used a grounded theory approach and consisted of in-depth interviews with leaders from both the profit and non-profit sectors and included 3 case studies -- the Four Corners unit at the ABC, the advertising industry and 3M. The research also includes two comparison studies, between a range of profit and non-profit organisations, most of which are renowned for creativity. The core question attempted to be answered was how can organisations become more creative.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
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Gegg, B. R. "A study of organisational growth and development of optometric practice in the UK, 1818-1983." Thesis, Brunel University, 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.373518.
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Baltaru, Roxana Diana. "Organisational expansion in higher education : the growth of universities' administrative staff and its impact on performance." Thesis, University of Essex, 2018. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/21435/.
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The current research investigates the professional and administrative expansion taking place in universities over the last twenty years, characterised by the emergence of new roles and functions in areas such as: planning, marketing, student services, student placement, quality control, and external relations. Understanding the forces underlying this change is essential in building a reliable picture of the current state and likely direction of the university as an institution. I engage with the two arguments conceptualizing administrative and professional growth in universities: functionalist (emphasising the role of structural pressures e.g. student numbers) and neo-institutionalist (drawing attention to the cultural forces that shape universities as formal organisations). The first chapter provides a cross-national assessment of the relative significance of functionalist and cultural (neo-institutionalist) explanations in accounting for variation in the levels of administrative and professional staff in 761 universities from 11 European countries. The second chapter provides a national level empirical illustration of how cultural forces such as the diffusion of formal organisation make UK universities’ more prone to expand their professional infrastructure in catering to demographic inclusion. The third chapter extends the national level inquiry with an investigation into whether UK universities’ engagement with professional staff enhances university performance, in line with functionalist expectations. The findings show that the impact of structural needs on the expansion of professional and administrative staff is overestimated, as well as the role that professional staff plays in universities’ performance. The growth in administrative and professional staff is by large a by-product of universities formalising themselves as organisations. In this sense, universities’ engagement with new layers of professional expertise is a purveyor of legitimacy for institutions articulating themselves as highly integrated, strategic, and goal-driven entities.
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van, Buuren Rudolph B. "BUSINESS INTEGRATION AS BASIS FOR GROWTH IN SMALL AND MEDIUM AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES." Journal for New Generation Sciences, Vol 6, Issue 2: Central University of Technology, Free State, Bloemfontein, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/11462/506.
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Published ArticleIncreased diversity in the agricultural sector in South Africa is forcing farmers to focus on the production of value-added commodities in the face of mounting global competitive pressures. However, many farmers, by operating individually, are unable to expand operations to the scale necessary to become involved in value-adding processing. This requires too much capital, skills, and time. By pooling resources and forming integrated small and medium sized agricultural enterprises even small producers can enter the processing arena successfully. This paper focuses on the specific driving forces, pitfalls and strategies that agricultural SMEs need to pursue in order to survive.
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Huyse, Huib. "Workplace and organisational learning in development aid : a case study of a Belgian development agency." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2011. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/7058/.
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This thesis investigates workplace and organisational learning over the period 2000-2010 in a Belgian development agency (VVOB), involved in the implementation of educational development projects. It explores some of the structural causes of the perceived learning deficit at the project and the agency-wide level, and links it with similar findings in other development agencies. For the project level, two case studies in Zimbabwe (ZimPATH and St2eep) were selected in which the project's management invested significantly in team learning. These practices were put against the learning support activities that the head office was catering for. The study follows a qualitative case-study design inspired by phronetic-based research (Flyvbjerg, 2001), and utilises a mixed method approach to data collection involving a variety of research instruments. The author of the thesis worked in different positions in the field and in the head office (1997-2007). An improved version of the concept of learning patterns (Sterck, 2004) is introduced to gain insights in the tenacity of learning practices. It is derived from an in-depth analysis of the underlying characteristics of the formal and informal learning activities. Important drivers of the observed learning patterns are argued to be axiological in nature. These result in strongly diverging views about why learning should happen, what should be learned, and how learning should be organised. These views are captured and analysed through a newly constructed concept, the learning support framework. The findings for project level learning are multiple and point at the importance of both intra-organisational and external factors. The working environment of the two case study projects was characterised by internal (micro-political) and external (institutional and socio-economic) sources of pressure that seriously complicated learning processes. However, evidence is provided that both project teams managed to develop powerful learning processes. The ‘situated' learning patterns of ZimPATH and St2eep shared a view of learning as a strategy to deal with the complexity of work. Knowledge was regarded as a process, with a focus on knowledge creation and the use of local knowledge. Both projects integrated learning in their daily practice via the extensive use of social learning practices and by creating conducive conditions for implicit learning. The bulk of these practices was going under the radar in the head office. It treated implicit learning rather passively and it hardly addressed the structural factors hindering such learning. As a consequence, teams without skills and insights into workplace learning were largely left on their own. The analysis of agency-wide learning in VVOB confirms research that indicates that ‘tacit knowledge does not travel easily' (Gertler, 2003, p.84). The strong bias towards vertical learning processes, ICT-solutions and the codification of knowledge created a bureaucratic learning pattern. It did not stop VVOB from entering into a profound crisis. A severe institutional emergency, triggered by external pressure of back donors and institutional partners in the years 2005 and 2006, together with changes in the management brought the momentum for change. The resulting improvements in learning at the field level were, however, not replicated for agency-wide learning. This is linked in the thesis with a lack of ‘institutional proximity' (Gertler, 2003). Initiatives introducing changes in existing learning practices are deemed to face fierce resistance unless they take into account crucial internal factors (such as the configuration of views, interests and history with regard to knowledge and learning), and various external causes of pressure. An alternative 3 step approach is proposed. In conclusion, unless development agencies and back-donors become more responsive towards the challenges of sharing tacit knowledge across organisational, institutional, cultural and power divides, projects like ZimPATH and St2eep are likely to remain pockets of innovation.
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Mfabane, Masiwakhe. "A teaching case study on the effect of growth on organisational leadership and culture at hardware warehouse as the organisation grew from one store to 18 stores." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013008.
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From summary:The main objective of this research study was to write up a teaching case study, based on Greiner’s (1998) model of organisational development, outlining what effect the growth of Hardware Warehouse had on the leadership and culture of the organisation. The study is a teaching case study in the form of “a descriptive case focusing on presenting a description of past events and decisions” (Cappel and Schwager, 2002: 289).
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Florby, Henrik, and Marcus Justad. "International Logistics : Realizing the coherence between efficient logistics strategy and international growth." Thesis, University of Kalmar, Baltic Business School, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hik:diva-1295.
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The world economy is in a transition period never experienced before, One of the main realising factors, boosting economy growth, is the catch up of many emerging countries. The emerging countries impose new competitive dimensions to the global economy, forcing well established multinational corporations into new competitive situations, brining both opportunities and threats.
The construction equipment industry has entered a condition of unprecedented growth. The total market demand has increased significantly and the demand development is prospected to continue for many more years. To keep up with the market demand and the sales opportunities, it is important to have machines available in the market. This impose that the logistic strategy is getting more important for companies in order to keep up with the prospected sales opportunities.
This Masters thesis is initiated by our case company, Volvo Construction Equipment International, currently suffering from an inefficient logistics strategy constraining international growth.
Based on our analysis and conclusion, Volvo Construction Equipment is recommended to move from transaction selling, spot market like international logistics strategy towards a relationship marketing based logistics strategy establishing in-depth collaborations with key account shipping suppliers. Furthermore, we recommend that Volvo CE should consider a logistics management function in order to facilitate the inter-organizational flow of logistics information.
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Roohanifar, Mohammad. "The implications of dynamic capabilities for organisational growth and competitiveness of small and medium sized enterprises : an empirical study." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2017. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.727112.
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Growth is of great importance to long-term survival and competitive advantage of the firm. Yet despite decades of firm growth research, there is little agreement on how firms grow over time. This is partly because firm growth is a multidimensional and complex phenomenon and there is still not much of a common body of well-founded knowledge about the causes, effects or processes of growth. With more than 99 percent of all firms being small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, growth of these firms is significant to the economy. In particular, how these firms survive and grow when facing challenges from changing external environment is an important but an under-researched area. Emerging from the strategy literature, the dynamic capability view of the firm is the ability to reconfigure resources and competences as a response to the changes from the external environment, contributing to the growth and competitive advantage of the firm. How and to what extent different dynamic capabilities provide firms with competitive advantage is a major debate within the strategy literature. One of the more recent arguments on dynamic capabilities is that they provide firms with competitive advantage by contributing to the growth of the firm. This thesis aims to investigate how SMEs achieve growth and if dynamic capabilities contribute to growth of firms. The study finds that major explanations of growth of SMEs during external uncertainty are organisational ambidexterity; diversification; dynamic managerial capabilities; and Penrose’s theory. In particular, the study finds that dynamic capabilities construct does not advance our understanding of the growth process beyond already established concepts such as Penrose’s theory. The work of Edith Penrose offers a rich and thoughtful explanation of how firms achieve and maintain growth when faced with external challenges. This thesis makes an original contribution to the existing body of knowledge in four ways. Firstly, it explores how SMEs achieve and maintain their growth during the periods of external uncertainty. Secondly, it empirically tests if dynamic capabilities construct is an explanation of growth in SME context. Thirdly, it responds to calls for more empirical and qualitative research on dynamic capabilities. Fourthly, it assesses the much-debated relationship between dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage and offers some useful insights on this link.
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Alanazi, Tawfeeq Mohammed B. "The interrelationships among business ethics, organisational culture and attitudes towards strategic growth alternatives of Muslims' SMEs in the UK." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2013. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/4412/.
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This research has been conducted to explore certain elements of Islamic business ethics and the roles they adopt to shape particular types of organisational culture, and thus the impact of organisational culture on attitudes toward strategic growth amongst a very specific population, which are SMEs that are owned or managed by Muslims in the UK. Previous research showed that a better understanding of organisational culture, and its main components, leads to effective and successful planning to achieve strategic changes. The research has been conducted based on a mixed methodology, combining qualitative and quantitative methods of research. The research began positively with a conceptual and theoretical model reflecting the author's research methodology approach. However, one part of the conceptual model, the "elements of Islamic business ethics factor" was ambiguous, because there were fewer contributions to be found in this area. Therefore, a set of in-depth, semi-structured interviews was planned to identify and clarify this part, followed by a well-designed questionnaire that was distributed across the whole UK. Principally, the elements of Islamic business ethics were discovered within the first stage, and many of the participants have mentioned the important impact of Islamic business ethics on shaping particular types of organisational culture, specifically, when the owner or manager has a strong spirituality. Moreover, the statistical results show that the type of organisational culture plays a significant role on the owner or manager's attitude to attain a certain alternative plan for strategic growth.
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Steenhuisen, Maria Jacoba. "The knowledge continuum as an enabler for growth and sustainability in the South African basic education system / Mariè Steenhuisen." Thesis, North-West University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10394/9207.
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The poor state and failure of the basic education system in South Africa gave rise to this research. The wave of knowledge loss experienced in the last two decades is expected to carry on and will continue to deplete the basic education system’s knowledge base, severely affecting the already poor quality of education as well as the future economic growth and sustainability in South Africa.
The main research objective was to establish whether future growth and sustainability in the basic education system in South Africa is achievable; which factors it is influenced by; and how knowledge continuity could impact on future growth and sustainability. A multidisciplinary approach focusing on organisational performance, knowledge management, individual and organisational behaviour and organisational development was followed.
The nature of growth and sustainability and knowledge continuity in organisations was explored by following a contextualisation theory-building process.
The main objective of the empirical research study was to determine by means of quantitative research the degree to which the influencing factors would enhance or impede growth and sustainability in an organisation. A quantitative survey method was followed. A questionnaire was developed and the survey was performed in 6 primary and secondary schools of the basic education system in South Africa. The questionnaire was found to be reliable with a Cronbach’s alpha of .8060.
In the descriptive factor analysis process, principal component factor analysis was conducted, which described the five constructs that would influence growth and sustainability. These constructs’ dimensions produced significant intercorrelations which indicate that the dimensions are for the most part intercorrelated with each other in contributing to growth and sustainability.
The multiple regression analysis indicated that knowledge loss would have an exceptionally strong impact on knowledge; and that knowledge, information and performance would significantly predict growth and sustainability. Organisations should change the focus for growth from physical assets to the development of intellectual capital, and knowledge continuity should form part of an organisations’ business strategy and mission. Knowledge continuity will only be successful if a culture conducive of trust and knowledge sharing and transfer exist, and are supported by effective and appropriate human resource practices and incentives.
A structural equation model development strategy produced a knowledge continuity model aimed at enabling future growth and sustainability, based on the constructs confirmed in the factor analysis. The model indicated that there is a direct causal relationship between knowledge, information and performance with growth and sustainability. The regression analysis showed that most of the intercorrelations are significant, thus confirming the theory.
The newly developed questionnaire and structural equation model should enable organisations to measure the degree to which the enhancing individual and organisational behavioural factors of growth and sustainability are in place and provide the measurement outcomes that would identify the factors that need to be focused on to improve and enable future growth and sustainability in an organisation.Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.
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Lord, Kay Elizabeth, University of Western Sydney, and Faculty of Social Inquiry. "The personal growth and career development of organisational change agents : a narrative study of the careers of experienced practitioners in an Australian setting." THESIS_FSI_SEL_Lord_K.xml, 2000. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/317.
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This study was initiated by the need to develop change agent skills in a group of consultants from a large government organisation facing major challenge from a competitive market. In order to develop a program, a group of mature and experienced change agents, with around 20 years experience in a variety of different organisations in each case, was asked, through the medium of an unstructured interview, to tell the story of their own growth and development. A model of 12 factors was developed, based on recent studies of leadership, the researcher's own career experience and an analysis of a well known practitioner's biography. This model was used to analyse the content of the interview material. The study found that there were a small number of factors which distinguished the development of this group from that of leaders who had been the subject of earlier studies. These were, firstly, the primary influence of the mother as role model. for both men and women. Secondly, the influence of early confrontations with established systems of power being employed in abusive ways, which developed a commitment to preserve the freedom of individuals to participate in decisions which affect their lives. Finally, a belief in the critical part ethics, integrity and the continual practice of learning for self-awareness, plays in maintaining a sustainable career as a change agent. The conclusions for a program of development for change agents are, firstly, that prospective participants should self assess their personal experiences from childhood, their attitudes to learning and the maintenance of an integrated self as an essential for mediating between stakeholder groups. Secondly, the influence of practical experience far outweighs that of schooling or academic studies. Thirdly, change agents employ what Bateson describes as type III learning, more than any particular theoretical approach, when designing organisational interventions. The study concludes that further research into the nature of the attachment bonds formed by change agents in childhood is needed to better understand the psychological dynamics which support excellent and sustainable practice.Master of Science (Hons)
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Lord, Kay Elizabeth. "The personal growth and career development of organisational change agents : a narrative study of the careers of experienced practitioners in an Australian setting." Thesis, View thesis, 2000. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/317.
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This study was initiated by the need to develop change agent skills in a group of consultants from a large government organisation facing major challenge from a competitive market. In order to develop a program, a group of mature and experienced change agents, with around 20 years experience in a variety of different organisations in each case, was asked, through the medium of an unstructured interview, to tell the story of their own growth and development. A model of 12 factors was developed, based on recent studies of leadership, the researcher's own career experience and an analysis of a well known practitioner's biography. This model was used to analyse the content of the interview material. The study found that there were a small number of factors which distinguished the development of this group from that of leaders who had been the subject of earlier studies. These were, firstly, the primary influence of the mother as role model. for both men and women. Secondly, the influence of early confrontations with established systems of power being employed in abusive ways, which developed a commitment to preserve the freedom of individuals to participate in decisions which affect their lives. Finally, a belief in the critical part ethics, integrity and the continual practice of learning for self-awareness, plays in maintaining a sustainable career as a change agent. The conclusions for a program of development for change agents are, firstly, that prospective participants should self assess their personal experiences from childhood, their attitudes to learning and the maintenance of an integrated self as an essential for mediating between stakeholder groups. Secondly, the influence of practical experience far outweighs that of schooling or academic studies. Thirdly, change agents employ what Bateson describes as type III learning, more than any particular theoretical approach, when designing organisational interventions. The study concludes that further research into the nature of the attachment bonds formed by change agents in childhood is needed to better understand the psychological dynamics which support excellent and sustainable practice.
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Lord, Kay Elizabeth. "The personal growth and career development of organisational change agents : a narrative study of the careers of experienced practitioners in an Australian setting /." View thesis, 2000. http://library.uws.edu.au/adt-NUWS/public/adt-NUWS20030630.140339/index.html.
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Thesis (M.Sc.) (Hons.) -- University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, 2000.A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (Hons.), November, 2000. Bibliography : leaves 154-162.
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Marques, Kenneth. "The development of a generic integrated model of promotional management for purposes of optimising organisational turnover growth and increased profits from sales promotional activities." Thesis, Port Elizabeth Technikon, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/119.
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This paper concerns itself with the devising of a model which organisations can consult when considering hosting any sales promotional activities. The success regarding profits derived from these sales promotions activities vary. These anomalies prompted a further investigation into the need for a single promotional model which could be utilized in varied business environments to optimize profits derived from sales promotions. The uniqueness of the South African environment was also taken into account when considering the various criteria in the development of the model. Sensitivity with regards to the types of barriers peculiar to South Africa is vital. The following excerpt from East Cape Weekend (An Eastern Cape newspaper) reinforces the belief that there are factors to which global environments are not exposed, and thus, the model should and will be designed to cater for these South African peculiarities by virtue of the fact that it will be based on the critical success factors of successful South African retail organisations. Resistance to technological progress due to the threat of possible job redundancy is one of the South African peculiarities that is referred to in the East Cape Weekend 09/06/2001 Michelle Pugh-Parry, “Controversial telephone technology will make paying bills safer”. Besides safety and convenience, the system can alleviate the R600m PE municipal areas debt, yet the union has outwardly rejected the plan and stormed the municipal buildings, protesting that it may cause job loss. It is precisely this type of peculiar barrier to progress that the author intends to accommodate for in the devising of his model. South African organizations will be considered when performing the empirical and primary studies in order to formulate a model that has been adapted to and caters for local needs due to its fundamental aspects being based on the South African circumstance. The information in this study contains the analysis of promotions in a broad context in terms of the following six facets of retail management, namely, operations, human resources, marketing, organizational behaviour, economics and strategies. The results of an analysis of promotional activities used by organizations in the Port Elizabeth municipal area was gained via the application of a questionnaire. An empirical study was performed and provided information that could be used in the development of a promotional model. The application of the model, benefits to whom and importance of the model was debated in the summary, conclusions and recommendations. The table of contents follows.
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Hudson, Ken. "Designing a continuously creative organisation." Thesis, View thesis View thesis, 2001. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/601.
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This research confirms that organisational creativity is of growing interest to leaders due to an an anticipated move into the information age, and the growth of the new economy. For some leaders it also represents a new post-cost-cutting strategy to ensure organisational growth and sustainability. The research used a grounded theory approach and consisted of in-depth interviews with leaders from both the profit and non-profit sectors and included 3 case studies -- the Four Corners unit at the ABC, the advertising industry and 3M. The research also includes two comparison studies, between a range of profit and non-profit organisations, most of which are renowned for creativity. The core question attempted to be answered was how can organisations become more creative.
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Armstrong, Deanne Maree. "Investigating well-being and mental health in Queensland fire-fighters." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2014. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/66801/1/Deanne_Armstrong_Thesis.pdf.
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This thesis used survey and interview methods to examine how organisational and interpersonal factors impact on the mental health of fire and rescue workers. It was the first published research to assess and predict multiple indicators of mental health; psychological distress, well-being, posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. The results provide valuable information for supporting fire and rescue workers through psychoeducation and proactive intervention programs.
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Hatton, Ian Alan. "The scaling of growth across levels of organisation." Thesis, McGill University, 2014. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=121139.
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This thesis explores growth across different levels of organization, and reveals remarkable similarities in the scaling and regulation of growth, from individual to ecosystem. Chapter 1 presents a general scaling law encompassing 800 terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of the world. I show that whole communities of predator biomass scale to total prey by an exponent near ¾ across global environmental gradients. Underpinning this pattern is production-biomass scaling that also converges on near ¾ exponents. These findings have implications for predator-prey theory and understanding trophic structure. Chapter 2 investigates growth and metabolic scaling at the level of the individual and argues that underpinning body size allometry may be multiplicative growth processes, rather than energy supply constraints, as is the predominant view. I show that across the tree of life, growth scales as ¾, while metabolism scales closer to linear. I discuss research at the organ/tissue level showing that growth is regulated by a complex set of genes, which can often be shown to have downstream influences on metabolism. These and other lines of evidence point to growth at the basis of allometry, providing a potentially important new orientation to the field. Chapter 3 examines a large dataset on mammal reproduction, mortality and abundance to elaborate possible regulatory pathways that balance the structure of large mammal communities. These pathways bear certain commonalities with growth regulation at the level of the individual. Summarizing data from all three chapters, I show that mammal growth to mass scaling is nearly equivalent across three distinct levels of organization with scaling exponents all within 0.012 of each other. These findings urge new fundamental theory that connects patterns of growth across scale.Cette thèse explore la croissance à plusieurs niveaux d'organisation et révèle des similitudes remarquables dans la mise à l'échelle et la régulation de la croissance de l'individu à l'écosystème. Le chapitre 1 présente une loi générale de mise à l'échelle englobant 800 écosystèmes terrestres et aquatiques du monde. Je démontre que la biomasse de communautés entières de prédateurs est liée au nombre de proies totales par un exposant de près de ¾. De plus, je démontre qu'à l'échelle de l'écosystème, la production est aussi liée à la biomasse avec un exposant qui converge vers ¾. Ces résultats ont des implications pour la théorie sur les relations prédateur-proie et la théorie sur la structure trophique. Le chapitre 2 examine la croissance et la mise à l'échelle métabolique au niveau de l'individu, ou j'affirme que les allométries reliées à la taille du corps peuvent découler de processus de croissance multiplicatifs, plutôt que de contraintes d'approvisionnement en énergie, contrairement au point de vue prédominant en écologie. Je démontre qu'au travers de l'arbre de la vie, les échelles de croissance se rapprochent de ¾, alors que les échelles de métabolisme ont tendance à être linéaire. J'élabore sur la recherche au niveau de l'organe / tissu qui montre que la croissance est régie par un ensemble complexe de gènes, qui ont des influences en aval sur le métabolisme. Mes travaux supportent l'hypothèse que la croissance est à la base des allométries, ce qui pourrait potentiellement donnée une direction nouvelle à ce domaine de la science de l'écologie. Le chapitre 3 examine un vaste ensemble de données sur la reproduction, la mortalité et l'abondance de grands mammifères en vue de définir les lois qui permettent l'équilibre au niveau de la structure des communautés de grands mammifères. Ces lois démontrent certaines similitudes avec celle qui régissent la croissance au niveau de l'individu. En synthétisant les données des trois chapitres, je démontre que la mise à l'échelle entre la croissance et la masse des mammifères est à peu près équivalente à travers trois différents niveaux d'organisation. Ces conclusions invitent une nouvelle théorie fondamentale qui relie les modèles de croissance à travers les échelles.
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Nyberg, Roy. "Examining institutional entrepreneurship at early moments : the case of mobile health in England and Finland." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b9fc5103-d06b-4562-aef8-8746d31c2ea7.
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If you have an idea about applying a proven technology to improve the processes in a new area of society, what does it take to implement it in a way that it has wide impact and endures? This is a relevant question particularly now, at the dawn of the age of 'big data', as information and communication technologies are adopted in many areas to harness the ability to collect, retrieve and analyse large amounts of information, and be made available at the level of individual users. Extraordinarily powerful devices developed in recent years offer much promise, but as many examples, such as Betamax, WAP-technology, HD DVD and netbooks, show that even potent technologies may fail to gain predominance and survive. The concept of institutional entrepreneurship is a useful framework to analyse these complex issues as it embodies a comprehensive analytical perspective, combining attention to the institutional environment as well as to the efforts by interested and re-sourced actors. I use this concept to I investigate the efforts to introduce mobile technology into health care in England and Finland. I employ a distinct research strategy that avoids a retrospective bias, through the collection and analysis of qualitative data before known outcomes, from a wide range of technology, care, regulatory and intermediary organisations. I uncover some of the difficulties to technology adoption and develop arguments about the types of efforts and the impact of context at the early moment stage that contribute to the further development of the concept of institutional entrepreneurship.
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Kattuman, Paul A. "Three essays on the growth of firms." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.295124.
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Shauchuk, Palina. "Innovation and Collaboration networks: Assessing knowledge pipelines, knowledge flows and firm performance." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/312579.
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In this introductory Chapter the rationale for this research is explained and an overview of the thesis is provided. This chapter serves as a concise introduction to the subject of the knowledge base and knowledge pipelines in a metropolis as Brussels, as well as providing an insight into the policy driven empirical research with additional focus on the appropriate spatial level of analysis to highlight the spatial inequality of innovation. The objectives of the thesis are reviewed by giving an overview of the research questions and the main hypotheses related to them. The theoretical background used in this thesis is briefly outlined. The structure of the thesis can be summarised as follows. The second chapter provides basic information about data on patents and scientific publications, the construction of indicators based on patents and scientific publications, as well as guidelines for the compilation and interpretation of patent and scientific publication indicators. The third chapter focuses on the determinants of the efficiency levels across regions in Belgium at different spatial levels. The fourth chapter builds on the research made in the previous chapters and focuses on the analysis of the impact of patent collaboration networks on the output growth of R&D active companies in Belgium. The fifth chapter analyses the impact of different collaboration ties on the productivity of innovative companies in Belgium, measured in several ways through the innovation survey and in terms of patents. The conclusion reported in the last chapter summarises the main findings and highlight possible suggestions for future research.Benchmarking exercises are increasingly used as an assessment instrument to guide policy-makers. They contribute to policy-making in three broad ways: delineating and monitoring development and progress; facilitating the exchange and gathering of knowledge on practices and policies; and promoting the image and attractiveness of economies. This research complements existing information about the Brussels Regional Innovation System (BRIS) with additional data that is less frequently available through current channels or difficult to make public due to the number of data manipulations. This research illustrates the Brussels innovation system by focusing on various aspects related to intra- and interregional connections. The dataset is based on scientific publications and patents over the period 1993-2013 containing at least one author with an affiliation or one inventor located in the Brussels-Capital Region, Vienna and Berlin. Patents and scientific publications provide a clear picture of the nature of technological change and innovation. Moreover, these sources give some further indication of R&D activities in the field and the position and specialisation of countries. The main benefit of such indicators is the unique empirical characterization they provide of the way actors interact as a collective system of knowledge production and diffusion (OECD, 1996). The main objective of this work is to compare Brussels with Belgian regions, city agglomerations and districts, as well as with capital cities of metropolitan regions (Vienna and Berlin) in terms of patenting and producing scientific publications, in order to map and understand how knowledge exchange takes place when Brussels actors are involved and which partners, locations, scientific fields and technological sectors are preferred. The main focus is on providing basic information about patent and scientific publication data, the construction of indicators based on patents and scientific publications, as well as guidelines for the compilation and interpretation of patent and scientific publication indicators.
The topic of the spatial pattern in R&D activities was investigated by several scholars. It is worthwhile to explore the dynamism and change of R&D activities’ spatial spread as R&D activities are very much a dynamic phenomenon and the consequences in terms of past growth of these activities have painted the current relative position of the regions. Analysing the determinants of the efficiency levels across Belgian regions at different spatial levels (3 regions, 10 provinces, 43 districts, and city agglomerations), we derive a regression based on the measurement of regional output growth by estimating an extended Cobb-Douglas production function based on a representative sample of Belgian R&D active firms over the period 2000-2013. We investigate the role played by knowledge (private and public R&D stocks) on the output growth by applying spatial econometric methods that account for both heteroscedasticity and spatial autocorrelation. The chapter focuses on the comparison of obtained results with previous studies based on Belgium. It turns out that a large part of output growth differences across the Belgian regions are explained by disparities in the endowments of these determinants.
Although the literature on the relations between patents and output growth of R&D active companies has been widely investigated, there has been little research with respect to the impact of patent collaboration networks on the output growth of R&D active companies. Integrating theoretical developments from the literature, we propose and test a conceptual framework that allows us to explain to what extent patent collaboration networks affect output growth. Testing the framework by using a constructed company-level dataset for Belgium, the empirical analysis reveals that output growth is significantly influenced by patenting activities and by collaborative relations with respect to patents. The chapter focuses on two distinct spatial levels. First, the spatial reach of the patent collaboration network is considered. The findings show that output growth is higher when collaborative relations are internationally oriented. Second, the regional location of the company shows differences in patenting activity, patent collaboration, and the spatial reach of the patent collaboration network.
Inter-organisational relations are a crucial aspect of knowledge flows, which are at the same time an important engine for innovation. Collaboration has become an ever more important feature of entrepreneurial strategy to innovate. Network ties facilitate companies’ innovative capabilities by acting as key sources for innovations, helping to access the resources and boosting knowledge transfer. This chapter analyses the impact of different collaboration ties on the productivity of innovative companies in Belgium, measured in several ways through the innovation survey (Community Innovation Survey) and in terms of patents (Patstat). Patent statistics are used as an objective measure for innovation. Unlike patent data, innovation surveys measure innovation activities carried out in companies. This chapter is primarily concerned with the following research question: do collaboration networks, as measured by innovation surveys (CIS database) and by invention applications (Patstat database), impact productivity growth in the same way? Further, this chapter focuses on an alternative spatial approach in order to look into the role played by proximate and distant inter-organisational networks among organisations. The findings show that the collaboration ties between companies are contributing the most to productivity growth followed by collaboration ties involving universities and government, public or private research institutes. Second, the spatial reach of the inter-organisational networks shows divergent impact on productivity performance of innovating companies.
Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
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Talal, Basma bint. "Contextualizing development in Jordan : the arena of donors, state and NGOs." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365556.
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Oatway, David Edward. "The organisation of clonal growth in a stoloniferous plant, Ranunculus repens L." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.324805.
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Pope, Brian. "Postal services in Western Australia, 1826-1901: The growth of an organisation." Thesis, Pope, Brian (1989) Postal services in Western Australia, 1826-1901: The growth of an organisation. Masters by Research thesis, Murdoch University, 1989. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/51493/.
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A postal system was initiated in Western Australia in December 1829 with a staff of one at Fremantle. When the Commonwealth assumed control In March 1901, there were more than 200 postal establishments throughout the State. This growth, its causes and some of the means by which it was accomplished, are examined in this thesis.
The postal system is studied in the context of demographic and economic change. At first the system was administered 1n a relatively informal manner by independent postmasters. It was dominated by businessmen such as Lionel Samson who undertook official postal responsibilities on a part-time basis as an adjunct to their commercial activity and, in some instances, other government work.
With the introduction of salaries in 1837, a Postmaster General in 1841 and some full-time employment from the late 1840s, the organisation gradually assumed a more formal structure although part-time employment continued to be the response to variable demand. The degree of formalisation was uneven and, at various times, effective use was made of untrained Aboriginal and female operatives and non-postal, government functionaries such as the military and the police.
By the end of the colonial period, the postal department had developed into a formal organisation providing a service for a relatively small population in isolated communities spread over an extensive geographical area. A set of characteristics typical of such organisations, derived from Max Weber's work on bureaucracy, is used to analyse this development.
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Reddy, Mike Megrove. "Communication in Christian groups from movements to organisations." Thesis, University of Zululand, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10530/456.
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A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of D. Litt. In Communication Science University of Zululand, 2004.This dissertation reports the results of a study made of the forms of communication employed by Judaeo-Christian religious groups when they saw themselves as movements, compared to when they had become organisations. Beginning with ancient Israel, the study documents how forms of communication become elaborated during the organisational phase of groups' existence. The forms of communication used in Christian religious groups are documented from the rime of the eady Christian Church, through the Reformation period, through the 17* century to present-day Christian groups. The dissertation also reports as a case study an empirical analysis of the forms of communication used by the Cell Church and churches with cell groups, both of which are inter-denominational and host regular informal gatherings. It is found that these gatherings display the onset phase characteristics of Christian movements. From a theoretical point of view the research reported here provides evidence in support for the following Christian Religious Communications Hypothesis: Christian religious groups will use a limited number offorms of communication when they perceive themselves as movements and they will expand their forms of communication, as they become organisations, which forms special instance of Klopper (2003)'s general Theory of the Optimisation of Human Communication: Humans optimise a variety of forms of communication within a culture, to ensure immediate direct personal survival and to maintain their culture as a fongterm indirect survival strategy. By confirming the validity of the Christian Religious Communications Hypothesis, the research findings also provide indirect validation for Klopper's general Theory of the Optimisation of Human Communication.
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Lindström, Olivia, Sanne Pedersén, and Susanna Kamph. "Intern kommunikation i växande organisationer - En fallstudie på Event AB." Thesis, Högskolan i Borås, Akademin för textil, teknik och ekonomi, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-11127.
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Strukturella förändringar och uppdateringar blir allt vanligare och mer väsentligt för attföretag ska kunna överleva i en konstant föränderlig miljö. Men trots behovet av att uppdateraoch utveckla sin organisation är dessa förändringar inte alltid väl mottagna. Faktum är att upptill 70 procent av alla program som tar initiativ till förändring misslyckas, och en brist ikommunikation och förståelse uppges vara anledningen till att felfrekvensen är så pass hög.När en liten och självgående organisation växer kan det också växa fram ett behov av mertydlighet och struktur, vilket indirekt innebär en stor strukturell förändring. Denna studiefokuserar därför på att undersöka den interna kommunikationen på ett litet företag somgenomgår en förändring i form av tillväxt.Denna kandidatuppsats är utformad som en kvalitativ fallstudie på företaget Event AB. Syftetär att undersöka hur den interna kommunikationen ser ut i en liten, växande organisation ochhur de anställda upplever att de arbetar med kommunikation i samband med sin otroligatillväxt. All empiri är insamlad genom kvalitativa intervjuer med samtliga anställda på EventAB.Genom att tillämpa teorier på intern kommunikation på vårt insamlade material visarresultatet att tack vare den lilla storleken på Event AB etableras relationer på samma visoavsett vilket led det går. Detta ger ett naturligt och avslappnat, fritt flöde av kommunikation.Det saknas någon form av kommunikationsplan, och kommunikationen utgörs mestadels avinformell, verbal kommunikation. Företagets värderingar, visioner och mål kommunicerasdåligt vilket skapar en generell förvirring internt. Avsaknad av plan och rollbeskrivningskapar en viss ineffektivitet som gör att mycket av företagets arbete blir reaktivt snarare änproaktivt. De anställda upplever generellt att ju större företaget blir, desto sämre blirinformationsspridningen samtidigt som behovet av struktur blir större. Event ABs ledning ärmedvetna om gapet i kommunikationen och arbetar aktivt med att försöka förbättra deninterna kommunikationen.Structural changes and updates are becoming more common and more substantial forcorporations to be able to compete in a constantly changing environment. Despite the need toinnovate the organization, these changes are not always well received. As a matter of fact, upto 70 percent of all programs that initiate change fails, and faulty communication and failingto understand the need of change is reported to be the main reason. When a small organizationgrows, the need for clarity and structure might grow too, which in turn means a palpablestructural change. Therefore, this study focuses on looking into the internal communication ofa small enterprise currently going through such growth.This bachelor thesis is designed as a qualitative case study on the agency Event AB. Thepurpose of the study is to investigate what the internal communication looks like in a smallbut growing organization, and how the employees perceive the internal communication inconnection to the growth process. The empiricism is gathered through interviews with allemployees of Event AB.Through applying theories on internal communication to our gathered empiricism the resultshows that thanks to Event AB’s small size, connections are made in the same way regardlesswhat direction - vertically or horizontal. This creates a natural and relaxed, free flow ofcommunication. There is no form of communication plan within the organization and thecommunication is mainly of the informal, verbal kind. Values, visions and objectives of thecompany is poorly communicated, which results in a general confusion internally. The lack ofplan and role description generates inefficiency, making a lot of the work reactive instead ofproactive. Employees generally perceive that the more the organization grows the worse thedistribution of the information gets, while the need for structure grows stronger. Event AB’smanagement is aware of the gap in communication and is actively working to improve theinternal communication.The language of this study is Swedish.
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Wilson, John O. S. "Firm size and growth and the evolution of market structure in European banking." Thesis, Bangor University, 1999. https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/firm-size-and-growth-and-the-evolution-of-market-structure-in-european-banking(9447e95a-4c1f-4a35-9df9-f035ecfff6c6).html.
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This thesis examines the size-growth relationship for banking and manufacturing firms. In particular it tests the Law of Proportionate Effect (LPE) which suggests that there is no relationship between firm size and growth. Tests of the LPE are carried out for eight European banking markets (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom) and for three bank types (commercial, co-operative and savings) over the period 1990 to 1994. Employing three measures of size (total assets, equity and off balance sheet business) models are estimated that test for size effects on growth, and the influences of previous growth, bank type and country membership. In the majority of cases, bank growth is independent of bank size, so the LPE holds. However, small banks grew faster than their larger counterparts (in terms of assets and equity) in France, Italy and Spain. The LPE is also investigated for a sample of European manufacturing firms drawn from five countries and eleven industry groups. In contrast to the banking industry there is less evidence that the LPE holds. In most cases small firms grew proportionately faster than their larger counterparts. Using stochastic simulation techniques, the effects of firm growth, entry, exit and merger activity on the evolution of bank sizes and market concentration is examined. Using a simulated industry in which the LPE holds as the benchmark, the implications of various alternative assumptions regarding bank growth were examined. Superimposition of entry leads to a lower mean bank size and lower levels of concentration. Exit leads to higher mean bank size and increased concentration. Mergers lead to increases in mean bank size and concentration in all simulated industries. Using the simulations methodology, hypothetical projections as to the future structure of the banking markets in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK are carried out. Overall, the simulations suggest that bank numbers are likely to decrease in all countries. The market shares of the largest banks are also projected to decline in all countries with the exception of the UK.
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Isserman, Noah Jacobsen. "Venturing into public good : from venture capital to the creation of state-supported venture philanthropy and its implications for third sector financing." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/286340.
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Over the last three decades, scholars in management, policy, and geography have examined the growing economic, social, and spatial impact of the financial sector. Venture capital firms have been a focus, generating a contested but deep literature around the roles of such "value-adding" capital providers in supporting the growth of firms, industries, and various territorial innovation models. In parallel, there has been substantial government support-financial, regulatory, and otherwise-of these private sector financial intermediaries, despite scepticism. The past twenty years have seen the emergence and rapid growth of analogous funders in the third sector, itself the realm of substantial experimentation and growth. These new intermediaries, "venture philanthropists", have become important players in shaping, structuring, and channelling funding to the third sector. The activities and effects of venture philanthropists are underexplored, as are their growing interactions with governments-despite intentional and striking similarities between the evolution of venture capital and that of venture philanthropy. This dissertation addresses these gaps by systematically examining the emergence, evolution, and operational practices of two influential British venture philanthropy funds: the first such fund in Europe (Impetus Trust) and the first fund in the world co-created with the state (Inspiring Scotland). The two venture philanthropy organisations (VPOs)-one with roots in venture capital, the other with roots in the voluntary and government sectors-both conducted the venture capital-inspired operational model of venture philanthropy in similar ways. That said, the VPOs reflected the logics and practices of their founders and funders. Impetus Trust more closely resembled early-stage venture capital, with a reliance on London-based networks, funders, and service providers-and a heavily London-focused portfolio. Inspiring Scotland evidenced the logics of government rather than charity in several instances, with substantial original research into social issues, heavily structured portfolios on set timelines, and regionally-distributed staff. This approach broadened access, allowing support of SPOs and their clients across various (and underserved) geographies, but limited options for opportunity-driven or expressive functions of philanthropy. I surveyed the CEOs of most organisations supported by the two venture philanthropy funds (82 of 98 charities and social businesses), supplemented by interviews of selected CEOs and the founders and staff of the two funds. I find that, overall, the two VPOs each engaged in seven core activities of venture capital, intentionally adapting them to the third sector: sourcing and selection, due diligence, an engaged relationship, provision of funding, provision of non-financial support, creation of network linkages, and intentional exiting of relationships. As in venture capital, this process had broader effects: providing signals of investee quality, preparing investees for subsequent funding, and expanding networks. The combination of long-term relationships and high formal reporting requirements imposed significant costs for SPOs-and also created a virtuous cycle of trust and collaboration between VPOs and SPOs. The venture philanthropy model also had broader societal effects, creating data regarding individual organisations and the efficacy of responses to social issues, which in both cases informed policy. As intermediaries, venture philanthropists decreased power differentials and improved the flow of (oft-anonymized) information amongst funders, statutory bodies, and funded organisations, facilitating several types of collaboration. SPO managers indicated that they received, on average, approximately ten different types of non-financial support-like strategy consulting, human resources support, or legal counsel. These managers reported in interviews and surveys that the non-financial services provided by venture philanthropists were highly valued, on average. Further, managers believed these services provided more value than it cost the VPOs to provide them. Likewise, managers highly valued most forms of new networking connections (though not all services or linkages were found to be valuable). Smaller SPOs valued services and network links more highly than larger SPOs, although all sizes of SPOs indicated both were valuable, on average. Importantly, this data was provided by SPO managers and focused on the SPO-VPO dyad-rather than provided by VPOs and focused at the portfolio or trust level. This filled an important gap in the literature: academics and practitioners often lament that the voices of charities supported by foundations are not often enough heard, which limits our understanding of many aspects of organizational philanthropy and its effects-in particular the burdens and benefits for recipient organisations. I documented the co-creation of the first government-supported venture philanthropy fund through eleven interviews with founding managers and government officials. This model, in which state, private, and civil society actors collectively founded and funded a value-adding capital provider, militates against neoliberal assumptions of an ever-diminishing state, as does the leveraging of private resources in alignment with state aims-though it raises concerns around democratic processes, accountability, and local control. This work helps inform the changing nature of the voluntary sector and its relationship with the state. I focus on the increasing interaction of actors between and across systems-sometimes in new roles and coordinated by new intermediaries-in the allocation of resources and delivery of services in the public interest. These new interactions inform broad bodies of work that seek to understand changing sectoral roles, most notably discourses surrounding neoliberalism(s), financialisation, and public management. Overall, I find privately- and publicly-funded venture philanthropy playing a role in the third sector analogous to the role of venture capital in the private sector, with similar practices and concomitant effects in data generation, network formation and strengthening, facilitating partnerships, and signalling the quality of supported organisations. By examining two such emerging models of capital provision, I contribute grounded understanding of the way such systems are created and function across the private, public, and third sectors.
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Thomas, David Keith. "Analysis of senior management teams in organisations that have demonstrated a proclivity for growth." Thesis, University of Derby, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10545/334914.
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Tae, H. J. "Technological innovation in Korea : An empirical investigation into the effect of government innovation incentive policies, market pressure and competition, and firm's organisation structure." Thesis, Henley Business School, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.383775.
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Jean, Fabien. "Growth and structure of graphene on metal and growth of organized nanostructures on top." Thesis, Université Grenoble Alpes (ComUE), 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015GREAY097/document.
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Le graphène, une monocouche de graphite, est composé d'atomes de carbone avec une structure en nid d'abeilles. Ses propriétés exceptionnelles ont attiré un intérêt mondial, dont le Prix Nobel de Physique en 2010. Le graphène épitaxié sur métal à rapidement été identifié comme un moyen de production de graphène de haute qualité de taille métrique, et est le sujet d'intenses activités de recherche en sciences de surface pour caractériser ses propriétés. En outre, ces études concernent aussi des systèmes plus complexes avec pour base le graphène, par exemple les réseaux ordonnés de nanoparticules à sa surface. Tout cela a mené à l'étude de la croissance, de la structure et des défauts du graphène épitaxié avec un grande variété de techniques expériementales, tel que la microscopie par effet tunnel, spectroscopie par photo-émission résolue en angle ou encore la microscopie électronique à basse énergie. Ce travail de recherche se concentre sur le graphène obtenu par croissance sur la surface (111) d'un monocristal d'iridium dans des conditions d'ultra vide et étudié avec plusieurs techniques de mesure par diffraction (diffraction de surface des rayons X, diffraction des rayons X en incidence rasante, réflectivité des rayons X et diffraction des électrons à haute énergie en réflexion). Ces expériences ont été faites au synchrotron européen ESRF à Grenoble, en France. La première partie de cette étude a été de déterminer la structure du graphène à l'échelle atomique. Le système montre une tendance à la commensurabilité, mais sa structure précise dépend fortement des conditions de préparation et de la température appliqué au système. En outre, en combinant des techniques de diffraction à haute résolution, une caractérisation précise de la structure, qui fait débat dans la littérature, est dévoilée. Le système étudié présente aussi une surperstructure, typique du graphène épitaxié, nommé moiré pour ses similarités avec l'effet optique du même nom. Celle-ci est utilisée comme gabarit pour faire croître des nanoparticules monodisperses à la surface en réseau auto-organisé. Durant cette étude, trois types de nanoparticules ont été examinés, des particules de platine de deux tailles différentes et des particules composées de platine et de cobalt. Ces systèmes hybrides présentent un fort degré d'organisation, partiellement hérité de la superstructure du moiré. Les nanoparticules forme une interaction forte avec leur support et elles subissent des contraintes de surface causées par leurs petites tailles. Par ailleurs, les nanoparticules de platine-cobalt, dont la croissance est en deux étapes, gardent une structure en couche et non une structure d'alliage métalliqueGraphene, a monolayer of graphite, is composed of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. Its exceptional properties have attracted a worldwide interest, including the Novel Prize in Physics in 2010. Epitaxial graphene on a metal was rapidly identified as an efficient method for large-area production of high quality graphene, and also was the matter of intense activities exploiting surface science approaches to address the various properties of graphene and of advanced systems based on graphene, for instance ordered lattice of metal nanoparticles on graphene. This resulted in the study of growth, structure and defects of epitaxial graphene on a wide variety of substrates with various techniques such as scanning tunneling microscopy, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy or low-energy electron microscopy. This work focuses on graphene grown on the (111) surface of iridium in ultra-high vacuum conditions and studied with several diffraction techniques (surface X-ray diffraction, grazing incidence X-ray diffraction, X-ray reflectivity, and reflection-high energy electron diffraction). These experiments were performed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France. The first step in our study was to determine the structure of graphene at the atomic scale. The system was found to have a tendency to commensurability, but that the precise structure depends on temperature and on preparation conditions. Moreover, with the combination of high resolution diffraction techniques, a precise characterization about the debated structure of graphene perpendicular to the surface was unveiled. The system, exhibits a superstructure, typical of epitaxial graphene, called a moiré, as an equivalent of the moiré effect in optics. This is used as a template to grown nanoparticles on top of the system to achieve the self-organisation of monodisperse nanoparticles. In this study, three type of nanoparticles were investigated, two different size of pure platinum ones and bimetallic ones, platinum and cobalt. These hybrid systems show very high degree of order, partly inherited by the superstructure lattice. The nanoparticles were found to strongly bond to their support, experience substantial surface strain related to their small size, and that bimetallic ones grown in a sequential manner retain a chemically layered structure
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Olivier, Grant Jerome. "Developing a business model for growth in social enterprise : a case study of a hybrid organisation." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020137.
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The Intshona Group of Companies operates in South Africa as a hybrid agribusiness combining entrepreneurial principles with a philosophy of social upliftment in Africa. This research views Intshona through the lens of social entrepreneurship theory, a hybrid research field with a dominant theme being the need for growth and scaling of impact, but which is seen as fragmented, containing ambiguities and lagging practice. In this research, a case study of Intshona is developed based on questionnaires and interviews with the organisation’s management, a concerned NGO, social beneficiaries as well as employees. The result is a two-way flow of knowledge integrating elements of existing social enterprise theory with Intshona’s business practices, building on a generic model of entrepreneurship and culminating in a business model for growth in a social enterprise. The research delivers strategic directives for Intshona for its future growth, presents a case study for addition to the body of knowledge on social entrepreneurship and concludes with suggestions for further research to continue developing theory.
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Wu, Weiju. "Spatial organisation of the cells in the mammalian lens epithelium and its role in lens growth." Thesis, Durham University, 2012. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3374/.
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The eye lens consists of epithelial cells, fibre cells and an outer capsule. The epithelium plays a crucial role in maintaining lens growth by continuous cell proliferation and differentiation into fibre cells throughout life. Many studies make or support the assumption that cell organisation within the epithelia of different mammalian lenses follows a common plan, while this has not been studied in detail. To better understand this and how it is associated with the development of posterior capsule opacification (PCO) in the human capsular bag after cataract surgery, I studied some basic cell characteristics in five kinds of mammalian lenses and in human donor capsular bags. The apoptotic cell number was very low in the lens epithelium. Cell density, height, cross-sectional area and volume were different in the three zones of the epithelium, and changed with age in the human lens epithelium. The majority of the cells in the peripheral capsular bag retained their polygonal morphology and were as a single layer. Cell proliferation was mainly restricted to the germinative zone (GZ) in the normal lenses and capsular bags. The proliferation index decreased with age in the human lens epithelium. FGF-2 could initiate cell proliferation by activating the extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) signalling pathway. An FGF-2 gradient was detected in the inner surface of the bovine lens capsule and its level was statistically higher at the equator where cell proliferation and differentiation occurred. Cell proliferation, cell apoptosis and cell density and size in each zone were all consistent in the young lenses from bovine, mice, rats, rabbits and humans. This suggests that a single model may explain cell organisation in the mammalian lens epithelium and age will be one of its important parameters. Moreover, destroying the residual cell organisation in the peripheral capsular bags might prevent PCO.
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Alyami, Jaber. "Estimating efficiency and productivity growth of the Grain Silos and Flour Mills Organisation in Saudi Arabia." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2015. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29223/.
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The Grain Silos and Flour Mills Organisation (GSFMO) is the responsible authority monopolising the Kingdom's milling industry. However, the organisation has recently been facing financial problems. The aim of this study is to estimate the technical, cost and allocative efficiency (TE, CE and AE) of the flour mills of the GSFMO (1988-2011), using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) approaches. In addition, it seeks to explain variation in efficiency levels between the mills and conduct further analysis through the second stage regression to estimate the effect of managerial variables. Productivity growth over time was also estimated in this study using DEA (2008-2011) and SFA (1988-2011) approaches. Both primary data and secondary data (1988-2011) to cover the nine milling branches were utilised. Using DEA under constant return to scale (CRS), average TE ranged from 91.72% in Khamis branch to 97.63% in Almadinah. Average TE under input-orientated variable return to scale (VRS) was lower than TE estimated under output-orientated VRS. The older branches had the lowest TE compared to newer branches. Under VRS, TE was greater than TE for the same branches under CRS. TE results using SFA were quite analogous to the results using DEA. Regarding productivity growth, using DEA for the 2008-2011 data, no consistent patterns were found across the GSFMO branches in the mean total factor productivity growth (TFPG), technical change (TC), and efficiency change (EC). When using SFA to estimate productivity growth over the period 1988 to 2011, there was a decrease in productivity growth for most branches. With regards to the results of the second stage regression, branch managers’ age, local temperature and 'bad' infrastructure have a significant negative relationship with TE, while manager's experience did not seem to have any significant relationship with TE. However, new and mix machine conditions and number of mills in each branch have a significant positive relationship with TE. In terms of CE and AE using the DEA approach, the results show that major losses incurred by the organisation were partly due to the significant decrease in CE and AE and that there is a significant scope to reduce inputs costs in the production process.
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White, Andrew Stephen. "A study of growth and entrepreneurship of a small organisation in the automotive industry of South Africa." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1525.
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The strategy of the organisation and its entrepreneur’s expectations of the organisation should be aligned in order to create an environment in which all entrepreneurs are motivated and work towards common goals. Furthermore, the entrepreneur’s life stages and personal life plans should be synchronised with the needs of the organisation to achieve the goals. As organisations pass through different stages of growth; they require different resources to assist in progression to next stages. As with organisations and their growth phases; entrepreneurs also undergo growth stages in many different areas of their lives. Entrepreneurs being individuals each have their own set of characteristics in terms of personality, leadership style, entrepreneurship type, skills, life stage and career stages. The challenge of an organisation is to create a strategy that best matches the expectations of all the entrepreneurs and members. The resources of the organisation need to be aligned in order to achieve the common strategy. The problem is as to how the organisation makes use of its leaders and entrepreneurs to achieve strategy; and how does it deal with inconsistencies in goals of entrepreneurs and shortfalls of specific skills or resources that it will require to sustain or grow the organisation?
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Itegboje, J. O. "The growth of agency labour in the Nigerian oil industry and its challenges for trade union organisation." Thesis, University of Salford, 2018. http://usir.salford.ac.uk/47339/.
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Over recent years amidst intensified and unrelenting global economic competitive pressures that have shaped the business environment within which organisations operate, many employers in both the private and public sectors in different countries around the world have responded by seeking to reduce labour costs through the specific mechanism of non-standard forms of employment (Forde and Slater, 2010; Teicher et al. 2006; Sanchez, and Schmitz, 200; Kalleberg 2000). This process has taken a particularly sharp form within the highly strategically important Nigerian oil industry, giving rise to a contemporary labour market characterised by widespread flexibility of work. It has resulted in a significant decline in so-called ‘standard forms of employment’ involving regular, permanent work alongside an alarming growth in ‘non-standard forms of employment’ involving vulnerable, precarious work (Adenugba and Jawadu, 2014; Kalleberg, 2009; Evans et al. 2007; Connelly and Gallagher, 2006). With the growing trend towards the agency workers through the use of employment agencies, there has been the emergence and consolidation of two-tier work arrangements involving differential employment relations contracts (Burgess et al. 2013:4084). Adopting a Marxist analytical framework, this thesis examined the ways in which the shift from direct-standard employment to a triangular employment relation in a crucial Nigerian arena of employment has become an increasing source of collective conflict within the employment relationships, between workers and their unions on the one hand, and the employers on the other. In the process, it considers the challenges and dilemmas for trade unions attempting to defend the terms and conditions of employment of different groups of workers, as well as the limits and potential of solidaristic forms of union within a highly fragmented context. The research study has been framed on a critical realism paradigm, with a focus on a mixed methods approach involving questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. These involved the management, trade unions, ministry of labour and employment, employment agencies, and workers on different employment contracts within three of the main Nigerian multinational oil companies, namely Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron. The multi-dimensional evidence explains the basic factors that have given rise to the growing trend of agency workers, the impacts of this trend on employment relationships, and the dynamics of trade union organisation and resistance. Findings suggest that the growth of agency workers in the Nigerian oil industry has led to an entrenching of dual and fractionalised internal labour markets and an increase in managerial control, with an accompanying undermining of the coverage and effectiveness of collective bargaining and trade union representation and organisation. Evidence is provided that documents the way the oil industry trade unions, while not able to successfully oppose the growing trend of agency labour, have nonetheless attempted to mitigate and challenge the encroachment of work arrangements amongst workers on standard forms of employment, but have been confronted with enormous challenges in attempting to collectively organise and represent agency workers in the industry. The findings of this thesis could help in understanding the implications of change in employment relations, and contribute to overcoming the current limits of thinking with regard to the use of agency workers, and furthers the current discussion on the ‘high-road decent work principles and equality’ of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
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Sonubi, Olubukunola Akinnusi. "Managing problems and pressures facing single mothers in management and professional occupations in South African organisations." Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/25164.
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The phenomenal feminisation of the South African labour force since the first democratic elections in 1994 is a result of the new democratic government’s efforts to transform South African society into a just, non-discriminatory and non-sexist society. This has, however, heightened several serious psychosocial problems facing working women, especially single working mothers, as they struggle to balance work and home responsibilities. The study was undertaken, firstly, to develop a valid and reliable measuring instrument to survey the problems and pressures experienced by single mothers in management and professional occupations in South Africa and, secondly, to obtain data on single working mothers’ perceptions about the resources they believe would assist them to mitigate the negative effects of the work-home conflict. To achieve these objectives, an exploratory, sequential, mixed method design was employed within a feminist perspective: First, based on the information obtained from theoretical and empirical data about the problems and perceived support of working mothers, semistructured interviews were held with 17 women in management and professional occupations (ten women in dual-career families and seven single working mothers). Then, on the basis of the interviews, a questionnaire was developed that was piloted among 30 experts and developed according to Lawshe’s principles. This questionnaire was called the Work-Family Pressure and Support Questionnaire (W-FPSQ). It was used in conjunction with the Overall Stress Index (OSI) and the Coping Behaviour Index (CBI) to determine the relationship and effect of supportive resources and coping behaviour on the work-family pressure and stress experienced by a purposive convenience sample of 104 single and 101 dual-career mothers (n=205). For the purposes of this study, descriptive, comparative, associational and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data, using SPSS for Windows, Release 17. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), with varimax rotation, was employed to explore the internal structure and validity of the W-FPSQ, the OSI, and the CBI. The reliability of the questionnaires was determined by calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for each scale of the measures. The results indicated that the three questionnaires were sufficiently reliable and valid to capture the present sample of working mothers’ experience of work-family pressures and stress and to discover the resources they perceived as supporting them in coping with work and family demands. The comparison of the 104 single working mothers with the 101 married working mothers showed that the single mothers’ mean rank scores were significantly lower than those of their married counterparts on the five support scales and on the coping behaviour scale, and significantly higher on the workfamily pressure and stress scales. The computed logistic regression model indicated that management support, organisational flexibility, time for family interaction, work-family pressure and stress were a set of variables that distinguished reliably between the single and married mothers in the sample. The study has clearly confirmed Gill and Davidson’s (2001:397) proposition that single working mothers are a ‘distinct group facing unique problems and pressures, and deserve to be recognized as such’. The problems they face as captured in this study demand a multi-pronged approach requiring organisations to provide management support, opportunities for personal growth and career development, work flexibility, time for family interaction and childcare facilities. These resources and a work-family-friendly environment will improve their work attitudes, job performance and well-being. Considering the proportion of single mothers in the society and the impact of their status on their children’s development, the issue of single working mothers and their needs deserves urgent attention.Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011.
Human Resource Management
unrestricted
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Rutgersson, Christoffer, and Anders Uddenberg. "Growth made simple : How to grow a small company into a large corporation." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Industriell marknadsföring och industriell ekonomi, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-64605.
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This study is about rapid growth in SMEs from an entrepreneur’s or manager’s perspective and it aim to find practices in order to enable and drive rapid growth. The purpose of this thesis is to understand how owner-led small businesses can be managed in order to maximize the profitable long term growth of the company. In order to understand this we have had a pragmatic perspective and have attempted to find practices that drive and enable fast growth. The study consists of an extensive literature study on the subject and five case studies of Swedish rapid growth companies. Each case study consisted of gathering secondary data and conducting 1-4 interviews at each company with Entrepreneurs, CEOs, CFOs and Sales managers. The result from the literature study and the case studies is a model for growth that is shown below. The model consists of eight different areas that are important to drive or enable growth in companies. Each area in the model was identified as a driver, enabler or blocker of growth for each case study. The conclusions from this thesis are five propositions regarding rapid growth that is listed below. ü Proposition 1: All the areas in our analysis model can either be a blocker, an enabler or a driver of growth. ü Proposition 2: It is possible to deliberately transform an area from a blocker, or enabler, into a driver of growth. ü Proposition 3: It is important to make the business scalable so no area becomes a blocker of growth. ü Proposition 4: The three areas, time monopoly, sales, and leadership could be considered as primary drivers for growth. ü Proposition 5: The two areas culture and expansion could be considered as primary enablers of growth. The findings from this study are highly valuable for managers or entrepreneurs that want to increase growth of their companies.
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Schueller, William. "Active control of complexity growth in Language Games." Thesis, Bordeaux, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018BORD0382/document.
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Nous apprenons très jeunes une quantité de règles nous permettant d'interagir avec d'autres personnes: des conventions sociales. Elles diffèrent des autres types d'apprentissage dans le sens où les premières personnes à les avoir utilisées n'ont fait qu'un choix arbitraire parmi plusieurs alternatives possibles: le côté de la route où conduire, la forme d'une prise électrique, ou inventer de nouveaux mots. À cause de celà, lorsqu'une nouvelle convention se crée au sein d'une population d'individus interagissant entre eux, de nombreuses alternatives peuvent apparaître et conduire à une situation complexe où plusieurs conventions équivalentes coexistent en compétition. Il peut devenir difficile de les retenir toutes, comment faisons-nous pour trouver un accord efficacement ? Nous exerçons communément un contrôle actif sur nos situations d'apprentissage, en par exemple sélectionnant des activités qui ne soient ni trop simples ni trop complexes. Il a été montré que ce type de comportement, dans des cas comme l'apprentissage sensori-moteur, aide à apprendre mieux, plus vite, et avec moins d'exemples. Est-ce que de tels mécanismes pourraient aussi influencer la négociation de conventions sociales? Le lexique est un exemple particulier de convention sociale: quels mots associer avec tel objet ou tel sens? Une classe de modèles computationels, les Language Games, montrent qu'il est possible pour une population d'individus de construire un langage commun via une série d'interactions par paires. En particulier, le modèle appelé Naming Game met l'accent sur la formation du lexique reliant mots et sens, et montre une typique explosion de la complexité avant de commencer à écarter les conventions synonymes ou homonymes et arriver à un consensus. Dans cette thèse, nous introduisons l'idée de l'apprentissage actif et du contrôle actif de la croissance de la complexité dans le Naming Game, sous la forme d'une politique de choix du sujet de conversation, applicable à chaque interaction. Différentes stratégies sont introduites, et ont des impacts différents sur à la fois le temps nécessaire pour converger vers un consensus et la quantité de mémoire nécessaire à chaque individu. Premièrement, nous limitons artificiellement la mémoire des agents pour éviter l'explosion de complexité locale. Quelques stratégies sont présentées, certaines ayant des propriétés similaires au cas standard en termes de temps de convergence. Dans un deuxième temps, nous formalisons ce que les agents doivent optimiser, en se basant sur une représentation de l'état moyen de la population. Deux stratégies inspirées de cette notion permettent de limiter les besoins en mémoire sans avoir à contraindre le système, et en prime permettent de converger plus rapidement. Nous montrons ensuite que la dynamique obtenue est proche d'un comportement théorique optimal, exprimé comme une borne inférieure au temps de convergence. Finalement, nous avons mis en place une expérience utilisateur en ligne sous forme de jeu pour collecter des données sur le comportement d'utilisateurs réels placés dans le cadre du modèle. Les résultats suggèrent qu'ils ont effectivement une politique active de choix de sujet de conversation, en comparaison avec un choix aléatoire.Les contributions de ce travail de thèse incluent aussi une classification des modèles de Naming Games existants, et un cadriciel open-source pour les simulerSocial conventions are learned mostly at a young age, but are quite different from other domains, like for example sensorimotor skills. The first people to define conventions just picked an arbitrary alternative between several options: a side of the road to drive on, the design of an electric plug, or inventing a new word. Because of this, while setting a new convention in a population of interacting individuals, many competing options can arise, and lead to a situation of growing complexity if many parallel inventions happen. How do we deal with this issue?Humans often exhert an active control on their learning situation, by for example selecting activities that are neither too complex nor too simple. This behavior, in cases like sensorimotor learning, has been shown to help learn faster, better, and with fewer examples. Could such mechanisms also have an impact on the negotiation of social conventions ? A particular example of social convention is the lexicon: which words we associated with given meanings. Computational models of language emergence, called the Language Games, showed that it is possible for a population of agents to build a common language through only pairwise interactions. In particular, the Naming Game model focuses on the formation of the lexicon mapping words and meanings, and shows a typical burst of complexity before starting to discard options and find a final consensus. In this thesis, we introduce the idea of active learning and active control of complexity growth in the Naming Game, in the form of a topic choice policy: agents can choose the meaning they want to talk about in each interaction. Several strategies were introduced, and have a different impact on both the time needed to converge to a consensus and the amount of memory needed by individual agents. Firstly, we artificially constrain the memory of agents to avoid the local complexity burst. A few strategies are presented, some of which can have similar convergence speed as in the standard case. Secondly, we formalize what agents need to optimize, based on a representation of the average state of the population. A couple of strategies inspired by this notion help keep the memory usage low without having constraints, but also result in a faster convergence process. We then show that the obtained dynamics are close to an optimal behavior, expressed analytically as a lower bound to convergence time. Eventually, we designed an online user experiment to collect data on how humans would behave in the same model, which shows that they do have an active topic choice policy, and do not choose randomly. Contributions from this thesis also include a classification of the existing Naming Game models and an open-source framework to simulate them
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Court, Franck. "Organisation supérieure de la chromatine chez les mammifères : dynamique fondamentale et interactions spécifiques." Thesis, Montpellier 2, 2010. http://www.theses.fr/2010MON20082.
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Chez les mammifères, l'ADN des cellules interphasiques s'organise en une fibre chromatinienne confinée à l'intérieur de « territoires chromosomiques ». Ce confinement autorise l'établissement d'interactions à longue distance permettant une régulation fine des fonctions génomiques. Toutefois, l'organisation et la dynamique de la chromatine à l'échelle dite supranucléosomale (10 à 500 kb) reste méconnue. Afin d'étudier la chromatine à cette échelle, nous avons utilisé la méthode dite de 3C-qPCR qui permet de mesurer les fréquences d'interactions entre deux portions génomiques. Dans un premier temps, nous avons analysé les collisions aléatoires afin de déterminer l'organisation intrinsèque de la chromatine à l'échelle supranucléosomale. Nos résultats indiquent que, en l'absence d'interactions spécifiques, les collisions aléatoires dans les régions riches en gènes présentent une modulation d'une périodicité d'environ 90kb. Cette modulation semble être sous-jacente à de nombreuses interactions spécifiques et avoir des répercutions sur leur positionnement génomique contribuant ainsi à l'évolution des génomes. Des modèles, dérivés de la physique des polymères, suggèrent que la chromatine s'organise dans ces régions en une hélice statistique. Dans un second temps, nous avons abordé l'organisation tridimensionnelle du locus murin Igf2/H19 soumis à l'empreinte génomique parentale. Les interactions spécifiques identifiées entre des « enhancers » endodermiques et certaines portions du locus ont confirmé l'existence d'une hiérarchie des interactions et ont permis la découverte d'un nouveau locus soumis à l'empreinte (PIHit). Ce locus produit un ARN non codant que nous avons caractérisé mais dont la fonction exacte reste à déterminer.Finalement, mes travaux de thèse ont aussi conduit à la mise au point d'une nouvelle technologie (HRS-SEQ) qui permettra d'aborder l'organisation génomique globale par le biais des séquences récupérées à haut-sel (HRS)In mammal, the DNA of interphasic cells is organized into the chromatin fiber which is itself confined inside “chromosome territories”. This compact organization allows the establishment of long-range interactions involved in the fine regulation of genomic processes. However, the organization and the dynamic of the chromatin at the so-called supranucleosomal scale (10 to 500kb) remain unclear. In order to study the chromatin at this scale, we used the 3C-qPCR method that allows to measure interaction frequencies between two genomic regions. Firstly, we have analyzed random collisions in order to determine the intrinsic organization of the chromatin at the supranucleosomal scale. Our data indicates that, in the absence of specific interactions, random collisions in gene-rich regions show a periodic modulation of about 90kb. This modulation seems to be underlying numerous locus-specific interactions and have repercussions on their genomic location, thus contributing to genome evolution. Models, derived from polymers physics, suggest that, in these regions, the chromatin is shaped in a statistical helix. Secondly, we have investigated the tridimensional organization of the Igf2/H19 mouse locus which is subject to genomic imprinting. Specific interactions identified between endodermic enhancers and some regions of the locus have confirmed the existence of a hierarchy of interactions and allowed the discovery of a new imprinted locus (PIHit). This locus produces a non-coding RNA that we have characterized but for which the function remains to be determined.Finally, my work also led to the development of a new technology (HRS-SEQ) that allows to study global genome organization through mapping of high-salt recovered sequences (HRS)
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Eastland, Charnall Lynn. "South Africa’s utilisation of the world trade organisations instruments in the protection of the textile and poultry industries." University of the Western Cape, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/7649.
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Magister Legum - LLMThe World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the only global international organisation dealing with the rules of trade between nations.1 The WTO agreements uphold certain principles; one such principle is the rule of the most-favoured-nation (MFN) obligation. This obligation requires WTO members, who grant certain favourable treatment to any given country, to grant that same favourable treatment to all other WTO members.2 However, there are several exceptions, three of which include: actions taken against dumping (selling at an unfairly low price); subsidies and special ‘countervailing’ duties to offset the subsidies; and emergency measures, to limit imports temporarily - thus designed to ‘safeguard’ domestic industries. These exceptions serve as remedies both against fair - and unfair trade practices. An example of remedies against fair trade practices are safeguards, and examples of remedies against unfair trade practices are dumping and countervailing duties. Anti-dumping actions are trade remedies/mechanisms available to members of the WTO in facilitating the protection of the industries under certain circumstances. The WTO agreement, which sets out the anti-dumping remedy, is the agreement on the implementation of Article VI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT 1994), also known as the ‘Anti-dumping Agreement’.4 Article VI permits countries to take action against dumping and the ‘Anti-dumping Agreement’ clarifies and expands on Article VI. The two operate together. Dumping is viewed as price discrimination between the domestic and export markets and take place where the export price of a product is lower than the normal value of such product. The normal value is usually determined with reference to the domestic selling price in the exporting country. Adjustments have to be made to the normal value and export price for differences that affect prices at the time that such prices are set, including differences in terms and conditions of sale, taxations, levels of trade and quantities.
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D'Rozario, Benedict. "Factors influencing the growth of sustainable people's organisations at grassroots level : the case of Caritas deeds and Sangathan in Bangladesh." Thesis, University of Bath, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.267349.
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Teruel, Carrizosa Mercedes. "Firm growth, persistence and multiplicity of equilibria: an analysis of Spanish manufacturing and service industries." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/8447.
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This thesis examines to what extent the firm size influences on firm growth and their behaviour of Spanish manufactures and service industries between 1994 and 2002 from the stochastic growth theory. The study has not only responded to the need of considering firm size as a key variable for future firm growth, but it has also examined the impacts of different industries for the development of firms, the learning process and the impact of internal and external firm characteristics. The firm growth is the process affecting firms while they remain active in the market. While some theories justify the firm growth as an adjustment of size due to internal or external environment, others have justified the change of size as a response to luck factors.
To analyse it we have based on Gibrat's Law or Law of Proportionate Effects. Gibrat's Law suggests that all firms have the same probability to grow independently of their size. Although the researcher's interest to analyse it there are some mix results in the literature and there are still some lacks in the literature.
According to the empirical review of the Gibrat's Law, several are the results to be stood out. Firstly, the firm growth is a complex process affected by internal and external characteristics which may be due to deterministic or random factors. Secondly, there appear some outstanding lacks of empirical studies. On the one hand, there are few empirical studies analysing the service industries. On the other hand, there is a scarcity of researchers incorporating the spatial dimension in their analysis.
Our results refuse Gibrat's Law both for manufactures and service industries and, more interestingly, those results do not vary when introducing the firm learning process in the market. In reference to the differences between each individual sector, there appear different growth behaviours depending on the industry. It is well known that the firm growth pattern depends on the characteristics of industry and our results show a different behaviour depending on the industry. Therefore, if we consider different sectors, the firm growth pattern presents a heterogeneous trend. Each industry has quite different technologies and perhaps different growth processes, which might explain the mixed nature of the results.
The persistence of firm growth offers a dynamic approach to the growth pattern. The relationship between past and current growth rates have been another aspect related with Gibrat's Law. The persistence of firm growth is highly important for policy-makers and managers, who should consider the pattern driving firm growth in order to increase the profitability of their investments, the job creation and the economic growth. As it was expected, the effect of the persistence depends on the proximity of the growth. In other words, a positive growth will have more impact on the following period than two periods later.
Related to the analysis of the presence of different equilibria of firm growth, our results show that there is a significant difference in growth between manufacturing and service sector firms which persist when controlling for other firm specific characteristics. Nevertheless, the introduction of the location variables generates that those different trends are not significant. In order to know how important the differentiation between manufactures and service industries is, we estimate Gibrat's Law for manufactures and service industries in separate equations. When we separate the estimation of both industries, our results accept that the equilibria are different including the locational variables.
In reference to the determinants of firm growth, variables such as the territorial R&D and the growth of GDP have positive externalities to firm growth. On the other hand, the industrial diversity or specialisation present different results depending on the sector. Finally, barriers to entry such as capital intensity and minimum efficient size behave as barriers to grow. That means that sectors which are highly capital intensive, they will prevent firms from growing. Conversely, sectors with low barriers to entry have low barriers to grow. However, those barriers to grow may be surpassed with internal characteristics such as innovation, cooperation, increase of human capital, etc.
Aquesta tesis examina la influència de la dimensió de l'empresa en el creixement empresarial, així com el comportament de les manufactures i els serveis d'Espanya entre 1994 i 2002 des d'una perspectiva estocàstica. Aquesta tesis no només respon a la necessitat de considerar el tamany de l'empresa com una variable crucial per al futur de l'empresa sinó també les característiques sectorials, el procés d'aprenentatge i les característiques internes i externes.
El creixement empresarial és el procés que afecta a les empreses mentre estan actives en el mercat. Mentre que algunes teories justifiquen el creixement de l'empresa com un procés d'ajust cap al tamany òptim, altres teories justifiquen el creixement a un conjunt de factors aleatoris.
Per tal d'analitzar el creixement empresarial, ens basem en la Llei de Gibrat o Llei dels Efectes Proporcionals. Llei de Gibrat suggereix que totes les empreses tenen la mateixa probabilitat per créixer independentment del seu tamany. Tot i l'interès del tema, els resultats en la literatura empírica són contradictoris i existeixen encara alguns buits.
D'acord amb la revisió empírica de la Llei de Gibrat, diferents resultants poden ser destacats. En primer lloc, el creixement empresarial és un procés complex que depén de característiques internes i externes que poden afecten de forma determinística o aleatòria. En segon lloc, hi ha varies buits en la literatura. Per una banda, pocs estudis empírica analitzen els serveis. Per altra banda, hi ha una escassetat d'investigadors que incorporen la dimensió locacional.
Els nostres resultats refusen la Llei de Gibrat per les manufactures I els serveis i, a més a més, aquests resultats no varien quan introduïm el procés d'aprenentatge de l'empresa en el mercat. Quant a les diferències entre cada sector individual, apareixen comportaments de creixement diferents en funció de la indústria. És un fet conegut que el creixement de l'empresa depèn de les característiques de la indústria i els nostres resultats mostren un comportament diferent en funció del sector industrial. Per tant, cada indústria té diferents característiques tecnològiques i diferent processos de creixement, els quals poden explicar els resultats contradictoris de la literatura.
La persistència del creixement empresarial ofereix una perspectiva dinàmica del creixement de l'empresa. La relació entre creixement passat i actual és un alter aspecte relacionat amb la Llei de Gibrat. La persistència del creixement empresarial és molt important per als agents públics i directors, els quals hauries de tenen compte el comportament que dirigeix el creixement empresarial per tal d'incrementar els beneficis de les seves inversions, la creació de l'ocupació i el creixement econòmic. Com era d'esperar, l'efecte de la persistència depèn de la proximitat temporal del creixement. En altres paraules, un creixement positiu tindrà més impacte en el període següent que dos períodes després.
Quant a l'anàlisi de la presència de diferents equilibris de creixement empresarial, els nostres resultats mostren que hi ha una diferència significativa en el creixement entre els sectors manufacturers i els serveis la qual persisteix quan controlem per altres característiques específiques de l'empresa. No obstant, la introducció de les variables locacionals generata que aquesta tendència sigui no significativa. Per tal de saber com d'important és la diferenciació entre manufactures i serveis s'estima la Llei de Gibrat per a les indústries manufactureres i els serveis en equacions separades. En separar les estimacions d'ambdues indústries, els nostres resultats accepten l'existència de diferents equilibris quan s'inclouen les variables locacionals.
Quant als determinants dels creixement empresarial, variables com la intensitat tecnològica territorial i el creixement del PIB presenten externalitats positives sobre el creixement empresarial. Per altra banda, la diversitat o especialització industrial tenen impactes diferents en funció del sector a analitzar. Finalment, barreres d'entrada com la intensitat del capital i el tamany mínim eficient es comporten com barreres al creixement. Això vol dir que sectors que són intensiu en capital dificultaran el creixement de les empreses. Pel contrari, sectors amb baixes barreres d'entrada tenen baixes barreres al creixement. No obstant, aquestes barreres al creixement poden ser superades amb característiques internes com la innovació, la cooperació, l'increment del capital humà, etc.
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Park, Caroline. "The knowledge mobilisation problem within horticulture in England between scientific based and grower based organisations." Thesis, Glasgow Caledonian University, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.636814.
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The UK horticulture industry is heavily reliant on the development and dissemination of new science to maintain productivity. Research is important to help farmers combat pest and disease, reduce pesticide use and generally increase the profitability of their enterprise while limiting its environmental impact. While it is important to invest in research the knowledge generated has no value unless it reaches and can be used by those who need it. In 2002 the Spedding Report identified issues in mobilising knowledge from publically funded bodies to the grower base of the English horticulture industry. The report stated that there was a disconnect between scientists and growers which was preventing knowledge flowing between them, the report did not however identify or characterise this problem further. The aim of this thesis was to identify whether the problem identified by Spedding still exists; what characterises it and what implications it has for the mobilisation of government funded knowledge from within scientific based organisations to the wider horticultural community. A case study based multi-method, multi-phase data gathering approach was adopted, including non-participant observation and interviews. Cases were chosen using a purposive intensity sampling technique and representative of the general organisational types within both the science based and grower based (salad, brassica and allium) sector of horticulture in England. Thematicanalysis was adopted as the data analysis method and the five steps for qualitative data analysis proposed by Taylor-Powell (2003) served as a useful guide. A literature review was conducted which four types of driver for agricultural extension were identified, and the main actors involved in the extension activities were described.
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Fortuin, Christiaan Jacobus. "Interaction between Seda and other small-business organisations as forerunner to integrated service delivery." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/880.
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Thesis (MDF (Development Finance))--Stellenbosch University, 2008.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The need for Small, Micro and Medium Enterprise (SMME) growth in South Africa is beyond question. Government sees SMMEs as an important vehicle to boost the economy of the country because of the contribution they make to job creation. According to recent estimates by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), small businesses represent 98% of the total number of registered firms, employ 55% of the country’s labour force and account for 35% of GDP. Unfortunately South Africa has a low survival rate among start-up businesses compared to other developing economies. Some believe that the reason for the failure of government programmes to support small businesses is due to poor delivery. This is one of the key issues to be addressed by all business support players. The key to success is to pursue a private sector led approach where experienced business advisors and mentors can add value to the businesses of customers. The research focuses solely on support organisations within the Siyanda region. The findings support the notion that Seda, as government’s small business support vehicle, will have to utilise support organisations more in order to make a success of its mandate. The investigation has identified some recommendations that may lead to an improvement in the current environment. The first approach is to ensure that people who render small business support have business experience and understand small enterprises. Secondly, to ensure that sector programmes are focused on a particular objective and that the overall strategy remains integrated and focused. In order to achieve this, the private sector should participate and share the costs. In recommending measures to improve the promotion of small business support at a local level, it is important to focus on what works best and that is ultimately privatesector organisations.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die behoefte aan groei van Klein, Mikro en Medium Ondernemings (SMMEs) in Suid-Afrika word nie debateer nie. Die regering sien SMMEs as ‘n belangrike medium om die land se ekonomie ‘n hupstoot te gee vanweë die bydrae wat hulle tot werkskeppping maak. Volgens onlangse skattings van die Departement van Handel en Nywerheid, verteenwoordig kleinsake-ondernemings 98% van die totale aantal geregistreerde ondernemings en verskaf hulle werk aan 55% van die land se arbeidsmag, en dra hulle by tot 35% van die bruto binnelandse produk. Ongelukkig het Suid-Afrika ‘n lae oorlewingsyfer onder nuwe besighede in vergelyking met ander ontwikkelende ekonomieë. Sommige mense glo die rede vir die mislukkig van regeringsprogramme wat kleinsake-ondernemings ondersteun, is swak dienslewering. Hierdie is een van die sleutelkwessies wat aangespreek behoort te word deur alle sake-ondersteuningspartye. Die sleutel tot sukses is om ‘n privaatsektor-gedrewe aanslag te volg waar ervare sake-adviseurs en -mentors waarde kan toevoeg tot kliënte se besighede. Die ondersoek het sekere aanbevelings geidentifiseer wat mag lei tot ‘n verbetering van die huidige omstandighede. Die eerste stap is om te verseker dat mense wat kleinsake-ondersteuning bied wel sake-ondervinding het en die kleinsakebedryf verstaan. Tweedens, om te verseker dat die sektor se programme wel gefokus is op ‘n spesifieke doelwit en dat die oorkoepelende strategieë geïntegreerd en gefokus bly. Ten einde dit te bereik, moet die privaatsektor deelneem en die kostes deel. By die soeke na stappe om die bevordering van kleinsake op plaaslike vlak te verbeter, is dit belangrik om te kyk wat (elders) reeds geslaag het. Dit is alte dikwels stappe wat deur die privaatsektor onderneem word.
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Hobbs, Jeremy. "The role of business organisations in the transition from an import substituting to an export orientated model of growth in Mexico after 1982." Thesis, University of Essex, 1991. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/31994612.html.
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Feldt, Karl. "Ledare med grit som motiverar : En kvalitativ studie om grit och ledarskap." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-40268.
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Forskning har länge försökt hjälpa organisationer att bli bättre och förstå vad som gör en organisation eller en person att nå sina mål eller inte. Under Angela Duckworth forskning fann hon att personer som hade förmågan att hålla sig motiverad under längre perioder klarade av en av den svårare officersutbildningen i USA. Det var inte den starkaste, smartaste eller snabbaste kandidaten som klara sig genom alla motgångar. Förmågan att vara motiverad trots motgångar och längre prövningar kallar Duckworth för ”grit”. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur ledare med grit kan motivera sina medarbetare under längre perioder. Via kvalitativa intervjuer, intervjuades ledare med grit om hur de motiverar sina medarbetare. Materialet analyserades med hjälp av en innehållsanalys. Resultatet av studien visade att det var svårt att avgöra utifrån ett test ifall en person hade hög eller låg grit. Ledare med grit försöker motivera sina medarbetare genom att nå ut till de på ett personligt plan och motivera andra så som ledaren själv blir motiverad. Slutsatser som dragits är att nivån på grit är svår att avgöra med hjälp av ett test, framtida studier hade kunnat undersöka närmare på hur grit testet stämmer överens med hur ledaren agerar i praktiken.Research has long sought to help organizations get better and understand what makes an organization or person achieve their goals and not. During Angela Duckworth's research, she found that people who could stay motivated for extended periods managed one of the more difficult officer training in the United States. It was not the strongest, smartest, or fastest candidate who managed through all the adversity. Duckworth calls the ability to be motivated despite adversity and prolonged trials "grit". The purpose of the study is to investigate how leaders with grit can motivate their employees. Through qualitative interviews, leaders were interviewed with grit about how they motivate their employees. The material was analyzed using content analysis. The results of the study showed that it was difficult to determine from a test whether a person had high or low grit. Leaders with grit try to motivate their employees by reaching out to them on a personal level and motivating others as the leader himself is motivated. Conclusions drawn are that the level of grit is difficult to determine with the help of a test, future studies could have examined in more detail how the grit test corresponds to how the leader acts in practice.